


send your child unto me

by batsinboots



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Accidental Child Acquisition, Casual Murder, Crack Crossover, Dark Brotherhood Questline, Dimension Travel, Multi, bc its true sorry its the law, desmond is nord bait, im blatantly stealing that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22597453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batsinboots/pseuds/batsinboots
Summary: In which Desmond Miles murders an old woman, joins a cult, and steals a child.Entirely based upon the universe ofThe Cosmos Keeps Messing With My HeadbyPurpleButtons0203
Relationships: Aventus Aretino & Desmond Miles
Comments: 16
Kudos: 263





	send your child unto me

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Cosmos Keeps Messing With My Head](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4013692) by [PurpleButtons0203](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleButtons0203/pseuds/PurpleButtons0203). 



> This fic is born out of my love for The Cosmos Keeps Messing With My Head, which has quickly become one of my favorite fics for perfectly blending two of my favorite things. @op your mind is amazing and your fics are a gift!! thank you for letting me play in this sandbox you've created 
> 
> i hope you enjoy!!

So apparently Skyrim has assassins. 

Ideally, Desmond would’ve known this _before_ a red-and-black clad asshole attempted to stick a knife through his gut, but he supposes it’s better late than never. And anyway, it’s not as if the attempt is any good.

Which is why, only moments later, his would-be-killer lies dead on the path. 

“Huh,” Desmond says to himself once the adrenaline fades, watching the man’s blood seep into the dirt. He doesn’t know what he could've done to lead to this, but apparently he’ll need to be more careful from now on. “Fuck.”

He drops to his knees beside the body and digs through the man’s pockets. 

Along with the usual lock-picks and potions (which he gladly takes for himself), he finds a note. Amateur, he thinks with a snort. One of the first lessons he learned on the Farm was to destroy anything that might trace him back to the Assassins. If this is the standard these assassins are keeping, it’s a wonder he hasn’t heard of them before.

While the name signed at the bottom is interesting, along with the confirmation that someone did in fact pay to have him killed, this isn’t the strangest part.

“The Black Sacrament,” he says, narrowing his eyes in thought. 

Why does that sound so familiar? 

When no answer reveals itself, Desmond lets out another sigh and stands, brushing the dirt from his knees. Then, after looking both ways to make sure no one who might care is within eyeshot, he grabs the body by the feet and drags it off the path. With one last touch, he shuts the man’s eyes for the final time and then continues his journey to Whiterun, the assassin’s note tucked safely in his pack.

When he pushes open the doors to Jorrvaskr, he almost thinks he might get away with sneaking down to the living quarters without any fuss. Then Farkas catches sight of him and lets out a hearty cheer that may or may not have been his name, and Desmond knows it’ll be hours yet before he has any peace. 

He can’t bring himself to mind. 

As he predicted, the celebration of his return lasts well into the night. The ale flows freely, and Desmond is more than happy to break open his apothecary supplies when Aela asks, mixing drinks that keep everyone rosy-cheeked and jubilant for hours. 

Now it’s nearing midnight, and Desmond is sprawled out across the thick rug beside the fire, his head cradled in Aela’s lap as the she rubs her bow-calloused hands across his hair and down his neck. He presses into her touch, sighing happily as she scratches at his scalp. Lower down, Farkas is curled beside him, his head resting on Desmond’s chest with one hand pressed against his ribs. 

While Desmond isn’t exactly sure when the Nord shoved his hand beneath his shirt, he isn’t complaining.

His hand is very large, after all. And warm.

Nearby, Vilkas is sulking. Desmond would be happy to invite him closer, but he’s feeling too comfortable to move or speak. Or, he is until Farkas’ wandering hand brushes across the single wound the assassin managed to inflict upon him. 

“What the fuck.” Farkas’ voice, already pleasantly gruff, is even deeper in his concern.

Desmond grimaces. Not because it hurts, but because the Nord stops touching him, lifting his hand from beneath his shirt as if he’s been burned.

“What is it?” Aela asks, the haziness of alcohol burning away at the first hint of trouble, “What’s wrong?”

“He’s injured!” Farkas proclaims.

Desmond sighs. 

All he wanted was to keep getting felt up by a man whose biceps are thicker than his head. Was that really too much to ask?

“I’m fine,” he says. 

But no one listens. Because of course they don’t.

“What?” Aela snaps. She reaches forward and pulls at his shirt, exposing his stomach and the scabbed over knife-would that curls across his side, just above his waist. “Desmond!”

He swats her hands away and pulls his shirt back down. “I’m _fine.”_

“How did this happen?” Vilkas demands, and Desmond is entirely sure that if he hadn’t taken care of the assassin himself, Vilkas would be more than happy to do it for him. 

Desmond considers lying before deciding it’s not worth it. “Someone sent an assassin after me,” he says. He digs the note out of his pocket and drops it into Aela’s waiting hand. “Performed the Black Sacrament and everything—whatever that means.”

“It means someone sent the Dark Brotherhood after you,” Vilkas tells him with a frown. 

Farkas growls, his broad hand curling over Desmond’s hip and squeezing. “Fucking cowards,” he says.

Desmond peers up at Aela, hoping she might have an explanation for him. She looks just as disgusted as her shield-brothers. “They’re a cult of Sithis,” she explains, though this tells him nothing at all. “A band of vermin with no honor. Once, they followed the will of their daedra lord, but now they’ll kill anyone for coin.”

Desmond snorts. Of course.

Fucking daedra. 

He thought he was free of them when he killed the Glenmoril, but apparently not. 

“Well, whatever they are, they failed.” He laces his fingers with Farkas’ and settles back into Aela’s lap. “And they’ll fail again.”

If they’re all as pathetic as the first, he has nothing to worry about. 

The next time Desmond hears about the Dark Brotherhood, he’s in some random inn in the middle of fucking nowhere, too far north to be anything but cold and miserable. 

With his hands curled around a warm mug, he’s doing his best to block out the world around him.

Unfortunately, the world is a fucking nuisance who hates to be ignored. 

“—that poor boy!” the barmaid exclaims, leaning forward across the bartop. Out of the corner of his eye, Desmond sees the traveler she’s talking to drop his gaze to her chest, the way he perks up in interest. “To think, performing such devilry so young.”

“Aye, it’s a tragedy,” the man says. He leans forward himself, lowers his voice. “None of the guards know what to do; Ulfric wants the boy gone, but no one wants to cross the Brotherhood.”

And now Desmond is interested.

Damn.

“And he’s really done it?” the barmaid asks, eager for gossip. ‘He’s—”

“Performed the Sacrament?” the traveler finishes for her. He grins, pleased by the barmaid’s exaggerated shock, and Desmond hates to admit he’s rather nice to look at. They both are. “He has.”

“Oh, isn’t it just terrible?” the barmaid asks. Only, this time she’s speaking to him. 

He looks up from his drink, startled. “Sorry?”

“The little Aretino boy,” she says, “I shudder to think of it, don’t you?”

When Desmond darts a glance to the traveler, expecting a glare for drawing away the attention of his conquest, he’s surprised by the considering look in the man’s eyes. 

“Oh.” He looks back to the barmaid, and she smiles. He clears his throat. “Uh, yes. Terrible business.” 

The barmaid reaches across the bartop to rest her hand over his own. The traveler shifts closer, until Desmond feels the press of the man’s knee against his thigh. Oh, what the hell, he thinks as he drains the last of his mead.

It’s not as if he’s in a hurry.

He smiles up at the traveler, and the barmaid sighs happily at the sight. “Tell me more.”

Windhelm is depressing. 

In addition to being cold enough that every breath hurts, the city’s walls are so tall they block out any sun that manages to peek through the perpetual clouds, and the people are _shit._

In fact, the first thing Desmond sees when he enters the city is two half-drunk Nords talking shit to a Dunmer woman, and no one is stepping in. Not even the guards—and Desmond thought stopping this sort of thing was their fucking job. Apparently, he expected too much.

Gritting his teeth, Desmond shoves himself between the Nords and their victim, forcing the men to stumble away. They protest, and Desmond lets one hand fall to his dagger, feels the magic of a Word curl beneath his tongue.

“Fuck off,” he snaps, and it seems they aren’t completely stupid, because they do. As they scuttle away, Desmond turns to the woman at his back. “Are you alright?” 

“I will be, stranger,” she tells him. She looks at him, and her red eyes gleam. “I take it you aren’t among those who hate my kind?” Desmond shakes his head, and she sighs. “Well, then. You came to the wrong place.”

“Hmm.” Desmond looks over his shoulder, sees the Nords from before sulking beside the large brazier at the center of the square, as if they’re just waiting for him to leave. “They give you a lot of trouble?”

“Only every day.” At Desmond’s frown, the Dunmer sighs again. “It’s nothing I’m not used to, stranger,” she says as she takes his offered arm, accepting the escort home, “most of the Nords don’t care about us either way, but those two are the worst of the lot. They like their alcohol; they like to wander the Grey Quarter, shouting insults in the small hours of the morning, even more.”

“And no one does anything?”

“With Jarl Ulfric as their guide?” She snorts. “Who would bother?”

Desmond remembers that first day. When he closes his eyes, he can still see the proud look in Ulfric Stormcloak’s eyes, the power he carried in every stride. He imagines a man like that wouldn’t change his mind easily.

Well, then.

Desmond will change it _for him._

But first…

Once the woman (Suvaris Atheron, she tells him later) has arrived home safely, Desmond sets out for the Aretino residence. 

At almost every inn or tavern he’d stopped in along the way to this godforsaken city, someone had news of the orphan boy and his ritual to share. 

It’s almost as if the universe is trying to tell him something. 

Once he reaches the door, he waits for the nearby guard to continue on his patrol and then sets to picking the lock. Everyone and their mother seems to know this kid is performing the Black Sacrament, but none of them have been able to tell him what that means. 

But that’s alright, he thinks as the lock clicks open.

He’ll figure it out for himself. 

The first thing he notices is the mess.

The house looks as if it’s been ransacked, abandoned, and then ransacked again. 

It’s no place for a child, but the chanting voice he hears from upstairs surely belongs to one. As Desmond ghosts up the stairs, he prepares himself for what he might see. Still, it isn’t enough. 

A boy is knelt on the floor. 

In his hands, he holds a bloodied knife, which he uses to stab the human heart that lies before him, over and over and over again as he repeats his chant. Also present is a skeleton, which Desmond is determined not to think overly hard about, and an array of candles and nightshade. 

“Sweet Mother, sweet Mother,” the boy says, voice thick with tears or maybe hatred, “send your child unto me, for the sins—”

Desmond creeps closer, only to freeze when the floorboards creak beneath his feet.

The boy cuts himself off with a gasp. He looks to Desmond, his eyes wide and bloodshot.

He looks exhausted. 

“It worked!” the boy exclaims as he scrambles to his feet. He sways in place, but his enthusiasm doesn’t fade. “Oh, I knew you’d come. I just knew it!” He stumbles forward, and it’s only Desmond’s quick reflexes that keep the kid from falling on his face. “I did the Black Sacrament, just like the book said, and then you came! A real assassin!”

“Kid…” He isn’t sure how to tell this boy he isn’t who he thinks. 

He isn’t sure he wants to.

“Will you do it, then?” The boy clasps his hands over his heart, looks up at him as if he’s hung the stars. “Will you kill her?” 

Desmond sighs. He pushes the kid’s hair out of his eyes, guides him to the closest chair before he can collapse for real. “Kill who?” he asks, resigning himself to the task.

“Grelod the Kind,” the boy says, his voice shaking. He clenches his fists in his lap. “She runs an orphanage in Riften, and I was sent there after—” He takes a shuddering breath, blinks back tears. “She’s awful. I _hate_ her.” He looks back at Desmond, his eyes wet and shining. “Will you do it?”

And, well... He supposes he’s killed for less.

“I will.”

Desmond once thought Windhelm might be the worst city in Skyrim.

Now that he’s visited Riften, he knows better.

The whole city stinks, both literally and figuratively. First, some beefy jerk tries to intimidate him into “staying out of trouble” when he’s not two steps into the city. Which, no. He’ll get into all the trouble he pleases, thank you very much. Then, when he’s just trying to get a drink, some ginger bastard hits on him with one breath and, with the next, tells him he looks like a low-life who’s never done a day of honest work in his life. 

He doesn’t stick around to hear the rest of _that_ speech.

Thankfully, he knows just the thing to make him feel better.

By the time night falls, any reservations he may have had about killing Grelod the Kind have disappeared, leaving only steel-hearted conviction as he waits for the right moment.

Getting inside the orphanage is easier than it should be. Once he’s in, it takes almost no work to find the right room, and he slits the woman’s throat with practiced ease. Then, silent as a ghost, he disappears back into the night, slipping over the city’s wall and into the wilderness.

In the morning, the news of the woman’s death begins to spread.

Surprising absolutely nobody, there isn’t a single person who mourns. 

By the time Desmond makes it back to Windhelm, he’s fought off two more assassination attempts. Or maybe they were kidnapping attempts? Honestly, he isn’t entirely sure. 

Either way, it appears the Dark Brotherhood isn’t very happy with him.

That’s fair, Desmond thinks. Because he isn’t very happy with _them_. After all, what kind of asshole would leave a child to perform such an ugly Sacrament for months without once intervening? 

The worst kind, that’s what. 

When he tells the Aretino boy what he’s done, the kid actually _hugs_ him. Desmond pats him on the back, doing his best not to feel touched by the gesture. 

And then the kid ruins it.

“When I grow up,” the boy says, voice far too sweet for the words coming out of his mouth, “I’m gonna be an assassin. Just like you.”

Desmond isn’t sure how to tell the kid this is the opposite of a good idea. Ultimately, he doesn’t bother trying. He’s not the boy’s father, after all. It’s not his job to steer him onto the right path. So, instead of a halting speech about morals that he’d only half-believe himself, Desmond gives the kid one last pat on his head and then takes his leave of Windhelm forever. 

(Well, maybe not forever. And if he spends the night in the Palace of Kings before he goes, warming Ulfric Stormcloak's bed, that’s no one’s business but his own.)

It takes him less than ten minutes after leaving the city gates to realize he’s being followed. 

While this would be bad under any circumstances, it’s made worse by the fact that he knows exactly who’s following him. With a roll of his eyes, he ducks off the path to wait. 

When Aventus Aretino comes creeping along, eyes trained on the packed snow as if he might pick out Desmond’s footprints, Desmond leaps from his hiding place, knocking the kid to the ground and holding him there.

The kid doesn’t scream.

He only looks up at Desmond, eyes wide.

“What are you doing?” Desmond asks, as if it isn’t obvious. 

The boy grabs the arm pressed across his chest, just shy of his neck, and blurts, “Take me with you!”

With a sigh, Desmond stands, offering a hand to the kid and pulling him to his feet. As ridiculous as he might be, the boy has guts. It’s almost admirable. 

And yet. “No.”

‘Why not?” the boy demands, crossing his arms over his chest, doing his best to stand taller.

“Well, for one, you’re a child,” Desmond says dryly. The boy pouts, not at all helping his case. “Second, I’m involved in some pretty heavy shit, these days. It’s not the kind of life for someone untrained.” 

As much as Desmond would have loved to fade into obscurity, Aela hadn’t let him refuse the call for long, and he doesn’t think dragon hunting is a very kid-friendly activity. 

“So train me.”

Desmond snorts. He can’t help it. “Have you forgotten the part about being a literal child?” he asks. “I’m not training you, and I’m not taking you with me.”

The boy glares, mulish. “Fine.”

Satisfied that he’s gotten the message, Desmond sets off down the path again. Only… “You’re still here.”

“Yep.” The kid has the audacity to grin, a sharp contrast to his glare from only moments ago.

“Go back to Windhelm.”

“I can’t,” the boy says, far too cheerful for Desmond’s peace of mind, “my house burned down.”

“Your house was made of stone.”

“It was a very persistent fire.”

“Fucking hell,” Desmond mutters, rubbing a hand across his face. “Go to Riften, then. Now that Grelod is gone, you can stay at the orphanage.” 

“I don’t think I will,” the boy says, thoughtful. “You see, I’m going somewhere else.”

“And where’s that?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“Where’re _you_ going?”

Desmond groans. What did he do to deserve this? Is it all the murdering he did? Because if it is, he supposes he’s probably earned it after all. But that’s not the point—”I’m going to Whiterun.”

Aela discovered a new Silver Hand stronghold, and he’s eager to join the hunt.

“What a coincidence,” the boy says brightly, “So am I!”

Ugh.

“Yeah, okay,” Desmond says with a sigh. “Whatever.”

He supposes there are worse children to be stuck with. And anyway, the kid will get bored eventually. 

And so the days pass.

And then one night, Desmond is drugged. He feels it almost as soon as it happens, but he can’t fight it; the world fades to black.

When he wakes, he’s somewhere new. Unfamiliar.

“Finally awake?” a voice asks. 

Desmond grunts, blinking his eyes open. A scan with Eagle Vision reveals no enemies in the room, but he still doesn’t relax. And for good reason, he thinks when his gaze lands on a woman in familiar armor, who’s reclined against the wall beside the only door, one hand on her hip and the other holding a wicked looking knife. 

He lets his head thump back to the floor.

“Let me guess,” Desmond says dryly. “Your name is Astrid.”

The woman tilts her head, eyes narrowing playfully. “The one and only.”

“Wonderful.”

The Dark Brotherhood has him at last. 

And it gets even better, Desmond realizes. Because there at the woman’s feet, looking as if this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him, sits Aventus Aretino, who Desmond distinctly remembers telling not to leave the inn.

Well.

_Shit._

**Author's Note:**

> and so it ends. 
> 
> to anyone who hasn't read literally everything by [PurpleButtons0203](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleButtons0203/pseuds/PurpleButtons0203) what are you waiting for?? it's time to treat yourself


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